Migrating from Facebook (plus a pre-2016-election debate)

For about a year now, I’ve been looking for an excuse to get out of Facebook; delete my account. I haven’t really been using it to catch up with or communicate with friends I’ll likely never see again. Been mostly using it just for news updates. Well, considering how they’ve been biased about news posts, even going to far as to delete posts and accounts that are conservative leaning, acting like hypocrites, showing how fucking political and biased they are, I’ve just been waiting for the one thing to nudge me far enough to say, “Fuck it.” Well, even though I kinda knew this to some extent, there’s the whole data collection thing that has exploded, news of them doing this with Obama and Trump, but trying to do it for Obama’s advantage more than for Trump (even though I find it questionable no matter who they’re doing it for). So, fuck it. My days on there are numbered, and it’ll likely only last for one more week.

But before I do that, I’m going to carry over a conversation I had in 2016 with a college history professor on Facebook, a professor of whom I was a student of many years ago. That’s all I’ll say about it. I won’t give any names, but some of you nosey fucks will likely track down the quotes and get the names anyway, and there isn’t much I can do about that. Whatever.

This long-running rivalry/debate proved to be a turning point for me in my life, where my eyes got opened to just how ignorant people can be. And it resulted in me becoming more political, which is something I hate being. But the times call for such a thing, because times require the average person to have some knowledge in politics considering how desperate things are getting at times (depending on where you live). The fact that society got to the point where Hillary Clinton was that close to getting elected says something.

So, here’s the debate (I am “Me”, the teacher is “Professor”, anyone else is Commenter #1, #2, #3, etc.; any reference to my real name will be replaced with “Anomalous Host”, and their names will be replaced accordingly). Keep in mind I’m not as well-knowledged about these things then as I am now. Keep in mind, I wished him a happy birthday in August 2016, prior to the rest of these posts. Oh, and one other thing. Going back to these older posts has just reinforced my decision to leave Facebook. Why? Because those motherfuckers took down some of the posts and comments made in this half-year-long discussion we’ve had, and some posts I know I made independent of the discussion that are now gone. Mark Zuckerberg can go fuck himself, right up his pro-censorship dickhole:

August 8, 2016

Me:“Not voting is a vote for Trump!” or “Not voting is a vote for Hillary!”

Rubbish! Voting for neither, or not voting at all, is still a statement on what you want from the leaders of this country! You want to make a statement by not choosing either of the 2 evils, vote for an independent:

Up to this point, me and the professor got into a back-and-forth regarding Obama’s handling of ISIS. Couldn’t locate those posts (because they got removed by Facebook), but what follows is all that remains.

Me: Been doing some thinking since my debate with Professor. Regarding the state of the Middle East. He’s right in that we can’t really afford a full scale war. But at the same time, I don’t believe we can afford to stay completely out of it either. I think Obama has been forced into a compromise that could potentially lead to something that works, that can hopefully continue into the next presidency, whoever ends up winning.

Professor: The word from the bird. ” Most guys respect women, some guys don’t, but never have I heard anyone use your particularly disgusting brand of sadism that refers to women as objects and not people. Even the most debauched club-hopping party animal talks about women more civilly than you.”

Commenter #1: Wow. So, this was just for fun it wasnt supposed to mean anything. I certainly apologize that this post has offended you so much. While I believe in being open to people with different views politically, socially and religiously, I feel that such a tirade is unnecessary and unwarranted.

Commenter #2:Who tiraded? It was like 3 sentences. But seriously folks, this voter fraud bullshit from drumpf’s camp is baseless and dangerous and we have an obligation to shut it down.

Me: Devious, aren’t they? The more of this you watch, the more pissed you’re going to get. Remember that “69 year old woman with oxygen tank punched in face at Trump rally” story? Apparently, she was trained to birddog. So are others who are mentally ill and such, paid by the DNC (or a faction of it). Despicable.

I have vague recollections of some other conversations we had over Facebook between then and the next entry. At some point, me and the professor talked about the pros and cons of the border wall, and more or less agreed to disagree, citing sources that showed how Israel built a wall that successfully kept out enemies in the past, while other countries like China and, I think, even Rome built walls and were less successful at keeping immigrants out. Basically, for every source brought up that supported my side of the argument, the professor could bring up one that supported his side. I think it’s situational and dependent on the situation as to whether or not border walls work (where the wall is located, if it’s during a time of war, the technology available, are there waterways, etc.). Also got into a brief discussion regarding guns, and how some random cunt showed up to say something along the lines of how all men shouldn’t be allowed to have guns but all women should.

Also, I brought up some negative points on Hillary Clinton, we went back and forth on them, he didn’t read my links in details (and I don’t think he even read some of the links he brought up in detail either, since I read whatever he brought up, made a response to it, and he responded as if the post was pure unquestionable truth even though I brought up valid points that debunked it). So I was getting a bit frustrated with him at this point, as he didn’t seem to be taking my anywhere near as seriously as I was taking him.

The below thread I initially posted in response to Professor continually bringing up the news of Trump allegedly raping a 13 year old in, I don’t know, around 1990 or something at some rich guy’s place during a party. In some past post/thread, I made an argument on Bill Clinton’s sexual accusers, and the professor said it didn’t matter because he was never convicted or proven guilty of those crimes. Keep that in mind.

Me: Less than the number that made accusations against both Bill and Hillary Clinton. As you have stated several times in their defense, just because someone makes an accusation doesn’t make the accusation true. There should be evidence. Or by your standards, a conviction.

Me: You know, the last time we got into a discussion like this, I made a similar post about Hillary, which you dismissed as a hack job and virtually ignored it. I’d like to know if you’re going to do the same here, and if not, why I should treat this post with anymore respect than how you’ve treated mine?

Professor: I remember the Clinton era and the continuous attacks on the Clintons. Essentially, it was this. Since the right did not have any substantive issues on which to attack Clinton, they assaulted his character. In case you don’t recall, the entire Clinton administration passed without one single indictment. Clinton did the US a great deal of good and had solid, decent policy ideas. Trump has nothing, and this is horribly disturbing. I sat through eight years of attacks on a decent man, Bill Clinton. I don’t regard these endless decades of attacks as anything but revenge by a Right that keeps losing and losing and losing, and which has no agenda save tax cuts for the rich, which have damaged this nation a great deal.

Me: I could say the same in this regard about Trump. Nothing substantive to attack him on, so they attack his character. As for nothing substantive with the Clintons, let me try this again. Many women have made allegations against Clinton some settled, some decided to become silent. It’s quite similar to the whole Trump debacle going on when it comes to the women of his past. In both cases, they’re nothing solid enough to be proven to be true, there’s only the word of the women. But then there’s something like this:

Professor: But as I said, Clinton had policies which concretely helped this country. Trump has none whatsoever and can’t explain any that he might have.

Me: I talked about how he does in an earlier discussion. Don’t you remember? How I believe his tax plan is better for the economy than Clinton’s?

Commenter #1: on a side note President Clinton was empeached by congress. that really happened.

Commenter #2: Bill Clinton was impeached by a Congress led by folks doing the same thing they were accusing him of doing. See Newt Gingrich. They spent $70 million or so tax dollars on this, which probably makes that the most expensive BJ on the planet. And the Republicans forced us to pay for it. Plus impeachment is the process of making a formal charge. It is not a conviction. As I recall, no conviction happened, right?

Professor: Anomalous Host, I read it. His tax plan is tax cuts for the rich- Reaganomics all over again. It did not work in the 80s. Doesn’t now.

Me: Glad you brought that up. Remember that site you posted in one of our past discussions that demonstrated how the economy supposedly did better under democratic leadership, though with no explanation as to why that is? I think Reaganomics and Bill Clinton are a perfect example for one of the reasons. It isn’t something that worked right away, true, because that’s the nature of trickle down economics. Eventually all of his Reganomics policies went into effect, and then Bill Clinton came into office to reap the benefits of it as the positives of the policy started coming to fruition. In other words, Democratic leaders piggy back off the economic policies of the Republican predecessors.

I’m interested in discussing more on that topic.

Me: Care to watch any of Clinton Cash? At least the part that talks about Haiti?

Commenter #2: Haiti was a disaster for all of the major charities. The Red Cross took in millions of dollars for Haiti, and built like 6 houses. The Clinton Foundation has supplied medicine, etc to vast swathes of humanity. I wouldn’t be at all surprised, however, if they suffered similar issues with aid to Haiti as the Red Cross did.

Professor: Anomalous Host, that makes no sense at all. Reaganomics only works for Democrats, who do the opposite of Reaganomics? Then why did the nations who used Keynesian principles recover from the Great Depression? While those who didn’t failed to recover? This is trolling.

Me: @Professor: I don’t see how that makes no sense considering this isn’t just some theory I made up. Look, here’s how my mind works. If someone brings up some point of view, some subject, some policy that I don’t agree with, I express why. If some evidence is brought up that supports their view, I research to see how strong that evidence is. If there’s something that seems to refute it, I bring it up. If I can’t find anything that refutes it, or if all other refutations seem too weak to consider, I relent and slowly come to accept that other policy/view/subject. Now prior to you bringing it up, I didn’t know that much about Reagonomics. So I looked it up, saw that there are people who agree and disagree on whether or not it was successful, focused mostly on the portions that state why it was successful, but also looked at some of the arguments which state why it was not. So after doing that looking, I made a response in a very simplified and generalized way that supports the theory that is held by supporters of Reaganomics that made sense to me. If there is a fault in that theory, believe me, I want to know about it, and I fully expected you to let me know about it so I can research it a little more. Because it’s conversations like this that encourage me to research and gain knowledge and know how to respond if I’m in a future debate like this with someone else, which may in turn influence how I see politics and thus influence how I vote in the future. I don’t call you a troll for bringing up points that I disagree with if they are points worth addressing. Keynesian economics is also something that I didn’t know anything about until I started looking it up for the past dozen minutes. So now I’m more aware of it, and aware of the arguments for and against it, like how the expenditures in WWII helped get us out of the depression because war expenditures are Keynesian in nature. But there’s also the fact that too much regulation on business can stifle business. Plus it makes one wonder why there isn’t more regulation on loans and credit since those have proven to be the main things that lead to a depression in the first place. And I wonder if Reagonomics is really THAT much different from Keynesian principles. I don’t know all the facts, and I don’t pretend to. The reason why I choose to get into conversations like this is to probe for information, to learn information, see if it sways me from one point of view to another. I don’t always choose to relegate my time to doing so. And I know you don’t either, since you don’t seem to read many, if any, of the links I bring up to other sites that support my position, even though I read each and every one of yours. But I can understand and respect that if you’re a busy man and don’t have the time to do that. But I find it disrespectful for you to not take my position seriously, not to take my arguments seriously, brush off several of them as hack jobs and trolling that should be ignored because they threaten to burst that protective titanium bubble you live in. And I find it very disrespectful for you to call me a troll when I am trying to have a conversation I can learn from. And I’m not going to continue having conversations like this with you if you continue to treat me with such disrespect.

Me: @Commenter #2: Hillary Clinton’s State Department would oversee the reconstruction effort in Haiti. Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills was responsible for the allocation of US tax dollars. Bill Clinton, appointed special envoy to Haiti for the UN, was named co-chair of the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission along with the Haiti prime minister. The Clintons had the interest of special donors in mind. Haitians were largely left out of the decision-making process in the IHRC. $124 million was used on project Caracol, was supposed to create 60,000 jobs and economic growth. This was done on the northern part of Haiti as opposed to the southern part where the damage was done from the 2010 earthquake/hurricane. Beneficiaries of this were Gap, Target, and Walmart, to name a few. Factory in Caracol was built, and the beneficiary companies profited off of it with the low-wage workers, and this left the rest of Haiti minimally affected. There’s more to add, but that’s a start. Is any of that false?

There were likely other posts, and I really wanted to find them and bring them over, but there are at least 2 threads made that had relatively good discussions in them that are lost forever (or at least kept hidden in the private Facebook database). So because Facebook took those down, on top of the other bullshit it’s been doing over the past few years, I’m taking down my account a week from now. Will this reduce my site coverage? Probably, but I don’t really care right now. Having my normal profile and my site page on Facebook isn’t helping its exposure all that much either.

Plus, honestly, social media isn’t all that healthy, and it can be addictive. Well, on that note, onto Gab.ai, and Minds.com.